


We make our own constellations

by sassamifrass



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, post-jumin route au, post-recovery saeran, references saeran's attempted suicide in the secret ends, the choi boys finding purpose together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 00:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14905094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassamifrass/pseuds/sassamifrass
Summary: On the anniversary of the day he left Saeran behind, Saeyoung looks up to the stars. But he doesn't have to do it alone any more.





	We make our own constellations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astraversa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astraversa/gifts).



> Today is the Choi twin's birthday, so I wanted to write something short for them! Also, my dear friend Ere gave me a writing prompt in like... March 2018 of "Choi twins and stars" when I was asking for drabble suggestions so uh, this works out well~

_Star one, me..._

Saeyoung lets his eyes unfocus, staring up at his glowing ceiling. The bed under his back is soft, although - he winces, pulling something out from under a shoulderblade.

He tosses the rolled-up sock to the side, after giving it a cursory sniff to see if he needed to aim for the laundry basket rather than the floor.

Toes curl and uncurl as he stretches - legs dangling over the edge of the bed. Draped across it sideways in an attempt to be sure he wouldn’t fall asleep.

_Deep breath in..._

There’s still more work to do.

_Deep breath out..._

The contract work he’s been taking since he left the Agency doesn’t pay nearly as well as his ex-employer, and the requests, though more mundane, are just as frustrating. Unclear instructions, hazy outcomes, self-contradicting clients.

_Maybe I should try opening that toy store, instead…_

But that’s risky. Not while he’s still building up a buffer of savings…

He rubs his temples, in an attempt to force away a lingering headache. Today, everything is just that little bit harder to manage.

Today, eight years ago... he’d left Saeran behind. Alone. His brother probably doesn’t realise it - one day blurred into the next in that place, and it’s not like their mother ever hung up a calendar - but Saeyoung knows.

Sometimes he wishes he could forget that date. Replace it with others.

The day he rescued Saeran from that horrible place.

The day Saeran finally accepted that his twin’s words weren’t lies.

The day Saeran smiled at him, for the first time since they’d been separated.

_But... I don’t deserve to forget that date. The day I failed him._

_Never._

He closes his eyes, focusing on his breathing. In another ten breaths, he’ll be ready to go back out and answer that client email.

_Ten more breaths…_

It’s on breath eight that he feels the bed beside him dip, another body laid out against his own.

He turns his head, opening his eyes. The light of the glow-in-the-dark stars is more than enough to make out his twin beside him. 

“None of these constellations exist in the real sky, do they?” Saeran murmurs, looking up at the ceiling. Sea green eyes reflecting back the soft luminescence from above.

“They don’t twinkle, either,” Saeyoung comments dryly in return, studying his twin’s face.

 _Did you want something?_ he wants to ask, but... what if that comes out sounding wrong?

It’s been a long time since they laid side by side in bed like this. _Eight years, to the day_.

“You told me about these, when we were kids…” Saeran continues, just as nostalgic. “You wanted to put some up in our room…”

“Yeah,” Saeyoung responds, eyes still on his twin. “I remember you jotting some of our ideas down in your notebook, dots all across the page…”

“Mmm.” Saeran keeps his head still, but his gaze shifts to meet his twin’s. “You made all of them... didn’t you.”

It’s not a question. He _knows_. But Saeyoung can’t hide his surprise.

“You… you recognise them?”

“Of course.” Saeran looks back up at the ceiling. “That one…” he points to one corner, “we planned it together, right? Kittens. And this one… that’s the house we were going to live in, right over the bed. And just above it, a UFO…”

Saeran continues, voice level, betraying nothing. “Somehow, you remembered all of them, even though I was the one who kept the notebook.”

“Heh…” Saeyoung raises a hand, making a sweeping gesture across the ceiling. “Those were our dreams… of course, I could never forget.”

As he reaches the end of his gesture, his twin’s hand catches his wrist. “Hyung…”

The contact is so surprising, Saeyoung starts, and Saeran lets go of his wrist just as quickly, dropping his arm to his side again. Then he starts to sit up, as if to leave.

Now it’s Saeyoung’s turn to catch his brother’s hand - their fingers are awkward against each other for a moment, hands so different to how they’d been as children. But then something clicks inside him, the digits interlacing naturally. Saeran stops, looking down at his hand, then back at Saeyoung’s face. Not pulling away.

“Saeran… you were going to say something. I’m sorry I jumped. I just wasn’t expecting…”

Saeran drops his body back on the bed, this time on his side, facing his twin. Fingers still entwined.

It makes Saeyoung want to cry. He rolls onto his side too, looking back at his brother.

_We laid together like this, talking, back then…_

His twin echoes the memory. “We were like this, then, weren’t we?”

“Y...yeah,” Saeyoung responds, trying not to show how emotional the contact is making him. Today, of all days.

Saeran just looks at him, silently.

Saeyoung gazes back, and for a moment, it’s not the adult he sees beside him, but the child. The smaller, younger brother who he wanted to protect more than anything else in the world.

Not that the feeling has changed. Though Saeran is more than capable of looking out for himself, now. Saeyoung knows that. It doesn’t stop Saeyoung wanting to care for him… to ensure there’s nothing that will ever hurt his twin again, as unrealistic as that is.

“You’re having a rough day,” Saeran eventually offers, after what feels like an hour, though it was probably only a minute. “Do you want help? It’s that project from before, right?”

Guilt sets in. He’s worried Saeran. “You… you don’t have to hack or code anything any more, Saeran. I’m just tired.”

The hand in his twitches. “You don’t want to do those things either, though… I can tell. So, why?” Saeran holds his gaze, green eyes unblinking. “We don’t need the money. At least, we’ve got enough for you to be picky with clients, or… do something you’ll actually enjoy...”

Saeyoung’s eyes drop to their hands. Saeran’s fingers are curling inwards against his own. “We just need to… build up a buffer… to be safe.”

There’s a faint sweet scent as Saeran sighs, whatever he’s eaten still on his breath. Popcorn, maybe. “I saw, you know. You’ve been looking up prices for studying overseas. Course fees. Cost of living. Everything.”

Saeyoung’s breath catches. Saeran reads his browser history?

 _Of course he does._ And Saeyoung always leaves everything open to his twin. Never wanting Saeran to feel his brother is keeping more secrets.

And yet somehow, he is.

“I… you, you said you were interested in life sciences… and horticulture… so, I thought…”

“I don’t _want_ to study overseas. Just because _you_ did…” Now Saeran’s nails dig into the back of his brother’s hand, making angry red marks in his skin. But then, just as quickly, Saeran’s hand goes limp. “You… you’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?”

“Saeran…!”

He answers physically, as well as with the horrified tone of his voice. Pulling his twin into him, wrapping his free arm around his brother’s shoulders, pressing their foreheads together.

“Never…! I… I never want… I would have gone with you… so long as you were okay with me doing that… I would never…”

His voice breaks. Saeran suggesting his twin would want to be rid of him… today of all days…

Saeran’s voice wobbles, too. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I know you don’t… I know…”

But it doesn’t sound like he knows. It just sounds like he _wishes_ . He _wants_ that to be the case.

 _God._ Lying side by side like they used to. And now, on the verge of tears.

It really is like old times.

“I’m sorry, too. I should have talked to you about it.”

He’d just wanted to be prepared. To say, ‘Hey, why not go to France? Japan? Australia? You can do anything you want…’ To make sure that Saeran wouldn’t have to worry, no matter what he ended up wanting to do with his life, now that it’s been returned to him.

He raises the arm he has around Saeran’s shoulders to stroke the back of his head. “I didn’t want to push you into talking before you were ready…”

“You don’t have to be so cautious around me,” Saeran sighs, closing his eyes. “I’m not a child, and I’m not…”

The shattered person Saeyoung had held, crying, after he’d tried to take his own life in frustration and hopelessness. Saeran doesn’t have to say it for both of them to know what he means.

Time, and caring, and therapy, had turned those open wounds into scars.

_But you’re still… you deserve everything good to come to you easily, now, Saeran… no more pain…_

Just like it always did, their breaths synchronise as they lie so close together, calming them both to a degree. Saeyoung doesn’t reply, feeling more words still waiting to leave Saeran’s lips. He’ll wait as long as his twin needs.

He only needs a minute. Saeran continues, voice coloured by bitterness. “Don’t sacrifice your own happiness out of some weird notion that it’s going to make me feel better. It’s not. It’s not what I want...”

Another long pause. Saeran opens his eyes again, rolls onto his back, using Saeyoung’s arm as a (surely, uncomfortable) pillow.

He looks up at the stars.

“We had a lot of dreams. Dreams we wanted to try _together_ . Things we wanted to do _together._ ”

He turns his head back to his twin. “Did you help me leave that place just to make me watch you earn forgiveness over and over for the rest of your life?”

“No…” Saeyoung responds, glumly, “is that what it looks like to you?”

“It’s what it feels like. So. Don’t. We both lost a lot of time already. Don’t give up any more. Why can’t we… make money some other way? Together? Didn’t you want to own a toy shop? You keep telling me I can do anything I want… but what I want is pretty simple.”

“Yeah…?”

“Yeah…” Saeran turns his body again, and there’s a muffled thud as something falls to the floor. Probably another pair of balled-up socks. Both of them ignore it.

“I just... want to explore the world around me slowly, bit by bit. I don’t want to go fast. I just want to see the sky, and warm myself under the sunlight, and turn my head and know that you’re going to be there. If you’re working all the time, then I…”

He exhales, slowly, turning his face back to the ceiling. “Is it selfish to just want to live like that?”

“It’s not selfish…” Saeyoung replies, squeezing his brother’s hand. “I didn’t realise… I thought maybe you’d want… I don’t know.” He huffs as he rolls onto his back too. Which makes holding onto his twin’s hand kinda awkward, his elbow now at a weird angle, but he doesn’t want to let go.

Eight years, since they’d held hands like this, too.

Saeyoung continues, softly. “But… that sounds nice… it’s been a long time since I let myself think about my dreams.”

“And yet here they all are, the last thing you see before you go to sleep,” his twin points out simply.

“Y-yeah…” Saeyoung answers. “More than anything, I just wanted to remember those times with you.”

“Well, you don’t have to just remember, now. And my ceiling’s empty. Why don’t…” He hesitates.

But Saeyoung thinks he sees where his brother is going. “You… want to make some new constellations, maybe?”

And Saeran smiles up into the soft glow of their old memories in light.

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

_...star two, you._

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, friends! If you're also a reader of my other, longer, ongoing Mystic Messenger fics - I have not abandoned any of them, I promise! However I've been working on a big piece of original fiction and it's been taking most of my attention alongside my full time job. But! That work should be done in July, and I fully intend to finish my open fics here, because I still love them, and I'm still very very fond of this fandom, and the twins especially. So for anyone following those fics, I just wanted them to know I will be back soon!


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